Jimmy Savile and his brother raped the living and dead in Stoke Mandeville
Jimmy Savile, formerly Sir Jimmy Savile in life, is all over the news.
The Sun says “Savile abused 63 people at Stoke Mandeville hospital”.
This is fact. There are no inverted commas around any part of it.The Sun then belts out other facts:
Victims aged between five and 75 were patients, staff and visitors
Savile’s older brother was a predatory sex beast
Savile’s hospital victims included cancer patient and burns victim
Whoah! Is the brother alive to defend hismelf?
Johnny Savile – a minor celebrity and part-time DJ – preyed on at least seven victims at a mental home in chilling echoes of offences carried out by his evil sibling. Evidence that Johnny, who died in 1988, was also a rapist emerged as health officials finally published their dossier of horrors.
Phew! Both dead. No need for a trial, evidence challenged, barriers to convictions negotiated or the accused to point the finger at others still living. It’s just done.
The Sun tells us that Jimmy Savile “abused 63 people at Stoke Mandeville hospital”.
But there is a better bit. The Sun says “staff knew of ten allegations against the notorious paedophile, a bombshell report revealed today.”
We then get a list of Savile’s crimes, one of which is against a dead child:
He was allowed unfettered access to the NHS where he raped and sexually assaulted patients in 41 hospitals during a 24 year reign of terror His victims – aged between five and 75 – included patients, staff and visitors. Among Savile’s victims at the Buckinghamshire hospital were an 11-year-old cancer patient, a wheelchair-bound teen and a burns victim.
He is also feared to have abused the corpse of a four-year-old child in a pram.
The report reveals a witness watched him taking the child’s body into the hospital mortuary in the 1970s and a nurse left him alone.
Witnesses? Well, the report says:
“A pram had to be used as the child was too big for the trolley usually used for children and too small for the one normally used for adults. The night nursing officer made the arrangement and Savile collected the body on his own.”
So. We know he raped the corpse how? Do we just hope he did?
Hattie Llewelin-Davies, charis of Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust, said today: “I would like to take this opportunity to say sorry to all the victims.”
Aren’t they alleged victims? Well, not quite. Evidence says the accusers were victims of negligence. Those in power swept the problem under the carpet, which allowed it to grow and go on, as is alleged, for so long. The Guardian says the absue went back to 1972.
Jimmy Savile was given free rein to sexually abuse 60 people, including seriously ill eight-year-olds, over two decades at Stoke Mandeville hospital due to his gold-plated status as a celebrity fundraiser, an inquiry has found.
The late BBC DJ was the subject of at least 10 complaints going back to 1972, but none were taken seriously or raised with senior managers, according to the NHS investigation.
The victims included a girl aged eight or nine raped 10 times by Savile when she visited the hospital where her relatives worked.
The report by Dr Androulla Johnstone and Christine Dent for the NHS Health and Social Care Advisory Service describes Savile as “an opportunistic predator who could also on occasions show a high degree of premeditation when planning attacks on his victims”.
The Sun goes on:
The investigation includes a key report into his activities where Savile – the most prolific sex offender in British history – had his own bedroom.
Was he? It’s a fact? Savile is the worst sex criminal in British history. And we do not need a court of law to tell us that because he is dead.
Nine informal complaints were made about Savile but none “were either taken seriously or escalated to senior management”.
Informal complaints to whom? what were they? Add them to other complaints made to police about the jibbering horroshow and a case file swells. But why were they not escalated? Why were the police not called?
Liz Dux, of Slater and Gordon law firm, is demanding that senior hospital staff who knew of the abuse but failed to stop it be held accountable.
Yes. They should be allowed to go on the record.
She said: “We have clear evidence from Savile victims at Stoke Mandeville that senior staff knew about the abuse…”
Alleged abuse.
“Some people knew and decided to ignore it. Frankly, it beggars belief. We expect the report to once again outline horrendous levels of abuse.”
She expects. Hopes? Wants?
“And we believe it will also have uncovered many missed opportunities to stop the abuse and even bring Savile to justice.”
Believe? Since when is what we believe a matter of criminal law?
“The victims are hopeful the review will establish a much greater level of accountability than the previous one did. Anything less will rightly be seen as a whitewash by those people still suffering from the awful crimes Savile committed all those years ago.”
We do , too. We need someone living to be held accountable, to say what they knew and to prove what went on. Is it still going on? Are patients still abused in hospital? Or was Savile the lone freak who did it all?
No. Another dead Savile was there.
Savile’s brother Johnny carried out his abuse while working as a “recreational officer” at Springfield Hospital in South London in the late 1970s. Witnesses described how Johnny took patients down to a store room where he kept mattresses to carry out his abuse. Female patients were forced to touch Johnny to stay in his good book.
And now?
A second woman says she was raped in Johnny’s office after he invited him in for a cup of tea.
Is it time to name all the names?
One of Savile’s victims at Stoke Mandeville said her attempts to tell a nurse about the abuse she received in the 1970s when she was 11 and recovering from a cancer operation were shrugged off. The girl, named Abigail, said she reported the attack to the ward sister and was told: “You silly little girl, do you know what he does for the hospital?” Another teenage victim told BBC Radio 5 Live last night: “My hands were bandaged and I couldn’t move and couldn’t walk very well either. The person grabbed me and pulled me towards them and then rammed their tongue down my throat. It was repulsive. I realised who it was and told the nurses what Savile had done. They just said they knew he was like that – ignore him, ignore him. They just thought it was funny, really.”
Sounds weird and ugly? Did she tell her mum? Did it go on the record? What facts are there? Well, the Sun sums up:
Savile, who died in 2011 aged 84, is believed to have abused hundreds of children.
Following the report’s publication, NSPCC chief Peter Wanless said: “Savile stalked NHS hospitals like they were his personal kingdom, arrogantly targeting both girls and boys, using fear and intimidation to create a wall of silence that concealed his crimes for decades. At Stoke Mandeville, Savile was perhaps at his most prolific in these vile activities.”
But he didn’t use fear. We just heard that the staff laughed and thought him funny. He made money for the hospitals not by rackjeteering but by running in marathons. Fear implies everyone is a victim.
“Of all calls to the NSPCC helpline about his crimes in hospitals, more victims told us they were targeted there than any other institution, with ten victims saying they were raped or sexually assaulted at Stoke Mandeville.”
In the Guardian, we hear from Kate Lampard, who carried out an independent review of Savile’s activities:
“He used the opportunities that that access, influence and power gave him to commit sexual abuses on a grand scale.”
Lampard said that part of Savile’s status and influence that allowed him to abuse was as a result of encouragement from politicians senior civil servants and NHS managers. Despite the particular nature of Savile’s narcissistic and manipulative character, there were lessons to be learned about how to safeguard patients and young people in the NHS in future.
Lampard made a series of recommendations:
All hospitals and trusts should to develop a policy for managing visits by celebrities and other VIPs.
Trust no-one from the outside.
The report revealed that over the last four decades three doctors also abused children at the hospital.
Trust no-one from the inside, either.
Victoria Ward hears one witness:
A 23-year-old radiographer, known as victim 19, said she often saw Savile walking around the hospital at night, assisting the porters.
The report said: “A nurse that victim 19 spoke to said that Savile would often push his way into their rooms and that he was known to be a dirty old man. No one ever indicated that Savile had actually abused them; he was regarded as a pain, nothing more.”
The woman also noted that “Savile’s brother (uncertain which one) used to wander around the hospital also dressed in a tracksuit. The common view was that he cut a rather pathetic figure”.
Such are the facts…
Posted: 26th, February 2015 | In: Celebrities, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
